Professor JONO PODMORE (KUMO)
Composer, Producer, Engineer, Orchestral Arranger, Writer.
Born in Liverpool in 1965 Jono began to play violin at the age of 10 followed by electric guitar and piano. He left Liverpool to study electronic music at Middlesex University in 1983 and by 1986 was composing music for theatre and TV, including Eugene Ionesco‘s Journeys Among The Dead and Stanley’s Vision with Ben Kingsley for Channel 4 TV. Later in 1986, together with Peter Hope, his first album Dry Hip Rotation was released, now regarded as a classic, re-released on Klanggalerie records in 2009.
In 1987 Jono joined The Corn Dollies as violinist and string arranger with international touring and studio commitments including 2 albums. Following the split of the band in 1990, he went to Japan to continue his studies in Karate-do. On returning to London, whilst continuing to compose and produce music for stage and screen, he began commercial work as sound engineer, producer, programmer and string arranger, including international #1 album Emergency on Planet Earth by Jamiroquai; winning a MOBO award with Sunship; and working with artists as diverse as The Shamen, Jhelisa, Ian McCulloch, Robert Owens, D*Note, Republica, A.P.E amid countless other acts in the vibrant London dance music scene of the time.
In 1994 he began work with Mr. C (The Shamen) and the groundbreaking techno label Plink Plonk. It was at this point he began to compose and record under the name Kumo, founding 2 sister labels to Plink Plonk: Autoi and Psychomat. He began to play the Theremin, developing new techniques for live performance of electronic music.
After a string of singles and remixes as Kumo, 1997 saw the release of his first solo album Kaminari on Psychomat to widespread critical acclaim. A series of live dates and international DJ commitments followed, including the Essential Music Festival Brighton, the Sonar Festival Barcelona, and the Graz Biennale, Austria.
1997 was also the year that Jono moved to France to work as co-producer, sound designer and sound engineer with Irmin Schmidt (of Can) on the opera Gormenghast, which premiered in 1998. A selection from the opera was released on Spoon/Mute records in 2000. He produced and co-wrote original scores for film and TV, including award winning German TV series and dramas with Schmidt. Jono relocated to Cologne, Germany in 1999.
In 2000 he worked with Tim Simenon on a new Bomb the Bass album; with Jose Padilla (Cafe del Mar compiler and DJ) on the album Navigator; and produced a number of tracks with Jaki Liebezeit (of Can). October 2000 saw the release of the 2nd Kumo album 1+1=1 on Spoon Records.
In 2001, after extensive touring, the first Irmin Schmidt and Kumo album Masters of Confusion was released on Spoon/Mute. Later the same year the duo created Flies, Guys and Choirs: an extensive 40+ loudspeaker sound installation for the Barbican Centre, London, as part of the Elektronik festival. Further live performances and workshops followed at festivals such as Montreux Jazz, Sonar, and Triptych.
In 2002 Jono worked on new projects in Germany, Switzerland and the U.K with B.J Cole and Jaki Liebezeit amongst others, releasing the Kumo and Friends EP on Electric Tones Records. For much of 2003 he worked closely with Spoon records on the CanDVD. This involved remixing Can in 5.1 with Holger Czukay, Jaki Liebezeit and Irmin Schmidt, and producing the Can Solo Projects CD. Later he digitally remastered the entire Can back catalogue with Andreas Torkler, initially released on CD and SACD, then transferred to vinyl with Kevin Metcalfe and released as a 17-piece box set in 2013.
Alongside a well-received and largely re-worked production of Gormenghast in Saarbrucken and Luxembourg in 2004, Jono also worked on a number of film and TV productions including The Hamburg Cell and Face by Antonia Bird. Acollaboration with BJ Cole appeared on the album Trouble in Paradise, and he was invited to lecture at the Red Bull Music Academy.
In November 2004 Jono was appointed Professor of the Practice of Popular Music at the prestigious Hochschule für Musik und Tanz Köln (Cologne Conservatory of Music and Dance), Germany, beginning with practical workshops ranging from dub to music business and from composing for film to house music, also running joint workshops with the International Film School in Cologne.
In early 2005 he wrote orchestral arrangements for the film Drei Grad Kälter performed by the Nüremburg Sinfoniker, and went on to mix the film music, excerpts being released on CD in 2006. The film was awarded the Silver Leopard at the 58th Locarno Film Festival.
Jono relocated back to London in 2006 and work continued with Irmin Schmidt on film music, remixes (inc. P.I.L), live shows, workshops, and producing the album dot i/o for Mito Ichikawa (P-Vine records 2006). Solo work in the period included a commission for the installation Tatlin’s Tower and the World; mixing the debut albums of Sun Zoom Spark and Biggi Orn Steinarsson; mixing jingles for FIFA for the 2006 World Cup; recording Futon‘s album Painkiller in Bangkok; studio and live work with U.K label City Rockers; and further recordings with Jaki Liebezeit.
In 2007, the 2nd Irmin Schmidt and Kumo album Axolotl Eyes was released on Spoon/Mute/Warners/P-Vine. The 7-track album was released with a bonus DVD containing the complete Flies, Guys and Choirs sound installation remixed by Jono in 5.1, accompanied by a 2-hour film, which he co-directed and edited. He was directly involved in the commercial strategy for Axolotl Eyes working closely with Mute records and managing online promotion. The DVD was screened at the 2007 Sonar Festival, Barcelona.
The same year, the four track Kumo EP Metapolis was released on White Label records, the first Kumo digital only release. Jono composed, recorded and mixed music for award-winning German TV drama Die Letzte Prüfung; and edited and mastered recordings by Damo Suzuki and the Elysian Quartet.
In 2008 Jono initiated a series of major developments at the Hochschule für Musik und Tanz Köln including:
- Creating and running the postgraduate MA Production course, forming a team of music industry professionals to provide regular workshops. The course is now in its fourteenth year, students regularly matriculating with first class degrees.
- Managing and co-ordinating the building and installation of a new, professional recording studio for popular music: Studio Musikproduction, being appointed Leiter des Studios (studio chief) when the studio was opened in 2010
After collaborating with Philippe Petit on Off to Titan, a radical reworking of Mahler‘s Symphony No. 1 released on Karl Records in 2009, he began developing Horrorshow, a major Kumo project. Consisting of 9 soundtracks for 9 short films, Horrorshow comprises of various multi-media and performance forms.
In Autumn 2009 Jono returned to his studies of Wu Style Tai Chi Chuan in earnest, successfully competing nationally and internationally and training in Singapore, Macao and Hong Kong. In 2016 he founded a thriving Tai Chi club in Forest Hill, London and in 2018 was appointed as a direct disciple of grandmaster Wu Kwong Yu with international advanced teaching certification.
Jono began editing and recovering previously unreleased recordings by Can in 2009. Released in 2012 as The Lost Tapes, the 3 CD or 5 LP set of edits and collages Jono created became one of the biggest selling products in the history of the band.
In 2010, along with Paul Conboy and Mark Hill, he founded analogue electronic music collective Metamono, beginning with cassette-only releases and underground film soundtracks. The first vinyl release Tape EP followed in 2011 as the band developed a strong live following. After a self-managed and promoted tour of Denmark and Germany, Metamono set up independent label Instrumentarium Records with Parcel Post EP as the initial release. In 2013, after a successful crowd-funding initiative, With the Compliments of Nuclear Physics, the first Metamono double vinyl LP, was released to unanimous critical acclaim. With funding from The British Council and London Film Hub, and in collaboration with the British Film Institute, the band created Secrets of Nature – Sounds Unseen, a 90-min show of especially composed live electronic music set to silent British science films dating back to 1907. Enjoying its premiere at the Bradford International Film Festival in 2014, the show was toured extensively including Manchester Design Festival and Crystal Palace Overground Festival, with the most recent performance at the historic Everyman Cinema, Crystal Palace in 2019. The 2nd Metamono album Creative Listening was released on Instrumentarium in 2016.
Jono continued work in other areas alongside Metamono. In 2012 he instigated, managed and mentored an international MA exchange programme between Newcastle University and Hochschule für Musik und Tanz Köln. The same year he created, recorded and mixed string arrangements for Norah Jones, and began the project Cyclopean with Jaki Liebezeit, Burnt Friedman and Irmin Schmidt. The Cyclopean EP, mixed by Jono was released on Mute records in 2013.
Around this time he began writing features for online music publications Getintothis and Adequacy. He became a regular contributor to Getintothis covering both music and broader political and sociological themes, leading to a weekly column in the run up to the 2019 UK General Election, and landmark interviews with Grandmaster Flash and Anne Rothery (Liverpool’s first black Lord Mayor).
In 2014, Jono mentored at the Montepulciano Kolleg für Musik und Kunst interdisciplinary summer school in Italy, running a workshop on approaches to text and music. He was invited back in 2015 and 2107, to lecture on iconic machines in Popular Music and Italian cinema. He also lectured on the relationship between digital and analogue music technology at Futureplaces medialab at University of Porto, Portugal; the Institut für Musik und Medien, Düsseldorf, Germany; the Avant-Garde Festival in Schiphorst, Germany; and ran a 3 day workshop on contemporary electronic music and performance at Kunstakademie Münster, Germany.
A continuing collaboration with sound-writer Prof. Dr. Swantje Lichtenstein, developed, with site-specific improvised performances and releases, including 7″ single Miss Slipper/Lewes on Psychomat (2017) and 60-min cassette Hallraum on the prestigious Tapeworm label (2019)
“Cool …a weirdly composed feel and brim with events both dreamy and unexpected.” (Wire Feb 2020)
Other work in this period includes: experimental live looping collaboration with vocalist Georgina Brett including all analogue performances for the London Analogue Festival; string arrangements with composer Amr Ismail for Egyptian national TV drama series L’Excellence, broadcast throughout Ramadan 2014; arranging, recording and mixing Silent Night for UK homelessness charity Crisis’ Christmas appeal; audio/visual installation Wireform with artist Mark Watson at Apiary Studios, London; a series of Kumo remixes including Ween; producing the Impulsion EP by Reason Stendec released on Psychomat; and an analogue, tape-based remix of a 50-min classical recital as a real-time performance, part of the Musiklabor concert series, Cologne, Germany.
Jono mixed the album Cradle of Humanity featuring the father of Ethio-jazz Mulatu Astatke + Black Jesus Experience in 2016. The collaboration continued with second album To Know Without Knowing released in 2020 to worldwide critical praise.
In 2016 pre-production began on feature film The Giaour, written and directed by Rika Ohara with Jono as composer, co-producer and advising on the script. Preliminary recordings took place in Los Angeles 2017, then moving on to Cologne, London and Istanbul. Filming with an internationally recognized cast is scheduled for Autumn 2022 in Greece with a budget of over €2 million.
Live performances, DJ sets and workshops as Kumo continued with shows in Japan, Macedonia, Kosovo, Los Angeles and UK including the Ministry of Sound and The Royal Festival Hall (with Metamono and The Orb). Jono ran seminars at the University of Applied Sciences Düsseldorf exploring dance music culture, staging an event to raise money for refugees; and examining the role of music in youth cults and wider society.
With the death of drummer and colleague Jaki Liebezeit in Jan 2017, work began on the book Jaki Liebezeit: The Life, Theory and Practice of a Master Drummer, as editor and writer in an effort primarily to secure Jaki’s theoretical developments. Jono performed at a sell-out event to commemorate the first anniversary of Jaki’s death at the Cologne Philharmonie Jan 2018. Published by Unbound, the first edition of the book was released Nov 2019.
“This book is fitting testament to this incredible drummer’s life and work” (Wire Mar 2020)
“…you may get closest to the man by listening to him, but for how he thought and lived, the illumination is invaluable” (Mojo Feb 2020).
Jono went on to co-ordinate, raise funds and perform at an event to launch the book at Stadtgarten Cologne, Nov 2019, including putting seminal Krautrock artists (Faust, Neu, Can) together on stage and bringing Andrew Weatherall to Cologne for an exclusive set, sadly one of his last. With Birgit Berger Jono co-founded the Jaki Liebezeit Stiftung, a charitable foundation for the promotion of music and cultural events related to Jaki‘s work. The book was released in paperback Jan 2020.
Work as Kumo in 2018/19 includes: the release and subsequent sell-out of 60-min piece Day/Night on renowned cassette label Tapeworm; live improvised performance Chamber Remix at Rhenania, Cologne, derived from data generated by the movements of the bowing arms of the Kelemen Quartett playing Bartók‘s 5th String Quartet; live performance at the Crystal Palace Festival of a specially commissioned extended version of Joy Division‘s Transmission; and, a solo improvised theremin and electronics performance at Kissit Cabaret, London, responding to excerpts from the film One Week by Buster Keaton. Productions include a live album for Rookery; Wrocław, the 2nd album by South London duo Stage Door Guy; and mastering albums for Black Arts Labs and Darkroom.
A number of projects were paused in 2020 due to the Covid pandemic, but Jono was busy throughout the lockdowns as teaching both his masters students at the Hochschule für Musik und Tanz Köln and Tai Chi shifted successfully online. Writing continued including an obituary for colleague Jose Padilla for newsoundgeneration.co.uk, and Freude! a Kumo reworking of Beethoven‘s 9th Symphony for New Clockwork Music was released by Electronic Sound.
Jono’s regular livestream on Crystal Palace Lockdown Live attracted many thousands of views and a Kumo EP Euclidean Patterns, released on Sound-Space records (Aug 2020), was created entirely under lockdown conditions. The success of the EP lead to an album for Sound-Space: Slave Dances (Seven Portraits), the first Kumo album since 2000, released in August 2021.
“Slave Dances (Seven Portraits) is an immensely pleasurable, brilliantly sourced weave of rhythm, texture and repurposed, reworked sounds doctored up in his South London home studio. It is, however, a vital tool for reflection on the connective history of Black music, remaking connections which have been erased by the habitual omission by whites of black agency in music history and its origins.” (David Stubbs)
The album is accompanied by a 52-page zine with text by Jono, art by Joyce Treasure and design by Dan Taylor.
Production for other artists in 2020/21 included: a remix of Heaven by Ann Clarke, a 6-track EP for Egyptian Psych-Funk group Tashkezar, a 60 min mix cassette for Sound-Space records, Arborea, the third, double album by Black Jesus Experience, and Wild About London a musical for kids by Will Hatchett. Dec ’21 saw the release of Jaki Notes by The Rhine, a 4-track collaboration with Manos Tsangaris, Drums Off Chaos and Ann-yi Eötvös, mixed and mastered by Jono.
A 3-track Kumo EP Three Tigers was released in early 2022 to mark the Chinese Year of the Tiger to critical acclaim:
“With Three Tigers, Podmore has once again shown himself to be a masterful arranger of conceptual, deep-thinking electronic music.” (Mat Smith)
Work with other artists in 2022 included producing 11 minute epic Oxygen with Jhelisa Anderson (9/10 in Blues and Soul) the first piece of a major new album, theremin on The Orb’s single Living in Recycled Times, production for 3D artist Marie-Thérèse Ross’s show Hotel Pavot, and, as Covid restrictions eased, live shows with The Rhine, Minny Pops, Metamono and an ambisonic Kumo show at Tuesday’s Post, Iklektic, London. Drum n Bass DJ sets in London and across Europe lead to the release of 2 further Kumo EPs: Rubicon and Alea Iacta Est. Jono mastered the album Ding * r by Scots rock masters Blauer Montag, released Feb 2023
UK magazine The Quietus commissioned Jono to write Addicted To Plastic? a feature on the environmental impact of vinyl, and Music, Cannabis and Me a feature about recent discoveries on the impact of cannabis. Work has begun on a major book entitled What Sounds Better?, and Jono translated the book das warten. kleine prosa und gedichte by Manos Tsangaris from German into English (Radius, 2023).
Work continues at the Hochschule für Musik und Tanz, including a Songwriter Camp at Montepulciano Kolleg für Musik und Kunst, May 2022, and a major collaboration with Cologne Games Lab. Pre-production on feature film The Giaour continues including production and moderation of The Giaour Podcast.
Talk to the Chip, a bi-monthly podcast with fellow music professor Elif Yalvaç exploring pioneering works of electronic music has begun, and a collaboration with Japanese noise artist Yukio Murata is planned.
March 2023
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